Accelerating evidence-based EdTech: The ICEI-Injini partnership journey 🚀

When academic research meets local innovation, transformative things can happen.

When academic research meets local innovation, transformative things can happen. That's precisely the ethos behind the partnership between the International Centre for EdTech Impact (ICEI) and Injini, Africa’s only EdTech Accelerator and Think Tank. Together, we are establishing an EdTech testbed pilot that will rigorously evaluate technology solutions, especially for learners with special needs. In this short blog, I describe the collaborative process, chronicling the discussions that shaped the testbed's methodology and parameters. Beyond the immediate pilot, I believe that this unique academic-industry collaboration is poised to strengthen South Africa's EdTech ecosystem and might serve as a replicable model for future evidence-driven initiatives worldwide.

The power of partnership

In the last few months, I’ve had the exciting opportunity to co-create a new partnership between the International Centre for EdTech Impact (ICEI) and Injini, the South African-based EdTech Accelerator and Think Tank. The aim of the collaboration is to set up the first EdTech testbed pilot in Southern Africa that is grounded in evidence and rigorous research methodology. EdTech testbeds are new emerging approaches that allow educators and school leaders to iteratively test EdTech products, with support from researchers, in real school and classroom settings (see here paper by our Centre’s partner in testbeds: GETN). The core idea of the pilot is to assess how and under which circumstances the EdTech testbed approach works in the South African context, to ultimately scale effective EdTech solutions jointly with the government. Testing EdTech for learners with special needs is the core focus of this initial pilot.

ICEI and Injini complement each other well in that ICEI brings in academic expertise and a large global network of distinguished researchers, while Injini has a strong track record in supporting the local and African EdTech ecosystem through its different accelerator programs, research, advisory and ecosystem initiatives. It also brings practical market and education system knowledge to the table. ICEI, on the other hand, has extensive experience in supporting EdTech companies and other education stakeholders in designing relevant research methodologies and in rigorously measuring impact.

Both Injini and the ICEI share the vision of improving education for all learners in South Africa through evidence-based EdTech. The ICEI is an active member of the Global Network of EdTech Testbeds (GETN) which supports different EdTech Testbeds worldwide.

Together, we can bridge the gap that often still exists between research and practice in EdTech.

While most testbeds focus on the connections between teachers and edtech founders, this initiative is unique in bringing researchers into the process right from the start. It is more aligned with our mission to work in an ecosystem collaboration that integrates research-design-practice and policy.

From Vision to Reality: Designing the Testbed

Effective partnerships need clear roles, a defined goal and transparent communication from the onset. Under the leadership of Injini, who has been pushing the testbed initiative forward in terms of focus, partners and funding, we’ve established the core parameters of the EdTech testbed pilot through regular virtual interactions and a jointly written testbed outline. We at ICEI were able to advise the Injini team on the methodological set-up and data protocols, amongst other aspects. The recently held South African EdTech Week supported by the Mastercard Foundation, allowed for a first in-person session between Injini, ICEI and the local special needs and education experts. This resulted, first and foremost, in increased trust-building among the different partners. We were also able to make the underlying implicit assumptions that each person and institution brings to the table more visible. And last but not least, we could work out all the open details that such a new initiative entails.

It was interesting to see the dynamic evolve during that in-person session. In a thoroughly collaborative spirit, we tackled questions around target learners and target schools and implications for the accompanying research:

• If you want to assess EdTech products for learners with special needs, what does that actually mean? What do we all mean by disability or special needs and which term is most appropriate to use?

• What is the reality in South African schools, should we go for special needs schools or full-service schools and select according to the disability statistics in those schools?

• How can we ensure we create a high-quality sample of learners with disabilities that allows for rigorous, iterative testing in a testbed setup?

• How can we ensure the iterative testing does not burden teachers and school stakeholders but rather adds value to their work?

• Are there enough EdTech companies and tools to address key learning challenges in those schools?

We had to find a delicate balance between addressing key parameters from the South African school system and demographic, to the EdTech products available and addressing academic rigor to ensure we can expect meaningful results from the testbed approach. I particularly enjoyed that we iteratively evolved the focus areas of the proposed EdTech pilot. While we needed to keep a strong emphasis on a suitable sampling strategy, we also took into account key education system information such as government priorities, language requirements, existing school relationships and funder interests. We, therefore, adapted the final school selection criteria accordingly.

We concluded the session by identifying key incentives for each stakeholder group to participate in an EdTech testbed: teachers, school leaders, district officials, researchers and EdTech companies. Knowing that teachers, in particular, usually have limited time for engaging in new projects due to heavy workloads, we put an emphasis on identifying promising approaches for this stakeholder group. One incentive area where we at ICEI bring in added value is hat teachers (and district officials) can become a vital part of a globally led, rigorous research project that considers their needs when it comes to confidence and capacity strengthening on strategic EdTech use in classrooms.

Strengthening the EdTech Ecosystem

This partnership brings value beyond the immediate partners involved. Given Injini’s central role in the broader South Africa EdTech community, EdTech companies associated with the accelerator through its various programs will be able to benefit from access to high-caliber researchers from the ICEI global network while being able to test their products in real-world settings before market roll-out. It allows for an increased emphasis on evidence and impact during ecosystem gatherings like SA EdTech Week, given the expected increase in evidence outputs and evidence-driven EdTech companies. It also gives the government an opportunity to engage in a meaningful way around EdTech testing, as a basis for any quality standard and guideline development. Last but not least, it allows for learning exchanges and potential collaborations with other EdTech testbeds and interested stakeholders through the Global Network on EdTech Testbeds network.

A Model for Future Collaboration

What have we at ICEI learned from this initial partnership phase?

1. Local leader: Having a local lead organization who understands the education ecosystem, either from an EdTech market perspective or from an academic perspective, is critical for developing a contextually relevant initiative with the right partners on board. We’re glad we can partner with Injini as a strong local leader.

2. Ensure funding early on: Given the long-term ambitions of most testbeds and known difficulties in securing funding, it is essential to ensure from the start that the iterative testing and engagement work is funded. Securing this as early on as possible is key.

3. Regular and transparent communication: I can’t stress this enough - making sure each partner clearly spells out its goals, needs, and hidden assumptions makes a partnership truly work. This is not a one-off exercise.

4. Finding cost- and time-efficient ways of working: Funding and teacher time are scarce resources that need to be addressed in a creative and flexible way. We at ICEI propose lean approaches to commit our network research members to support local partners in their research endeavors by pre-vetting projects and setting up the framework so that they can just come in and do what they’re best at: evidence review, methodology design, analysis and scientifically accurate way of disseminating results and recommendations to policy-makers.

This partnership allows us at ICEI to assess how to further refine and improve our collaboration approach with local partners. We think that the testbed environment is promising in that it brings together the different stakeholders in a systemic and structured way, allowing for real-world testing and putting a specific focus on impact measurement and effective implementation approaches. Given the nascent regional EdTech ecosystems in Africa, we see potential for replication in other contexts, such as Kenya or Ghana.